Ayn Rand Got It Right.
Posted by freedomforall 1 year, 5 months ago to Philosophy
Excerpt:
"here is a tendency in the world of ideas to divide thinkers into saints and witches. Some are singled out for a hagiographic treatment. When others discover issues with their thoughts or lives, the switch is flipped and they become worthy of being burned. They are either valorized or demonized. This has happened to countless intellectuals: Voltaire, Jefferson, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Heidegger, and thousands more.
It’s all quite infantile. The better approach is one born of maturity. Read everything and everyone and learn what you can and toss out what’s wrong. Of course this requires work and thought. In fact, the saint/witch dichotomy is merely a mask for laziness. It’s a way of finding a fast track to truth that dispenses with the arduous task of actual research.
Few have been victimized by this habit as much as the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. People might encounter her work in high school and decide to adopt it as a personal credo, only to find out later in life that the world is more complicated than she describes and they turn against her.
This is all unfortunate. She was a singularly insightful intellectual from whom there is a vast amount to learn.
...
there are precise contributions she has made that make her writings an indispensable guide to understanding modern life, both the problems and many of the answers."
"here is a tendency in the world of ideas to divide thinkers into saints and witches. Some are singled out for a hagiographic treatment. When others discover issues with their thoughts or lives, the switch is flipped and they become worthy of being burned. They are either valorized or demonized. This has happened to countless intellectuals: Voltaire, Jefferson, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Heidegger, and thousands more.
It’s all quite infantile. The better approach is one born of maturity. Read everything and everyone and learn what you can and toss out what’s wrong. Of course this requires work and thought. In fact, the saint/witch dichotomy is merely a mask for laziness. It’s a way of finding a fast track to truth that dispenses with the arduous task of actual research.
Few have been victimized by this habit as much as the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. People might encounter her work in high school and decide to adopt it as a personal credo, only to find out later in life that the world is more complicated than she describes and they turn against her.
This is all unfortunate. She was a singularly insightful intellectual from whom there is a vast amount to learn.
...
there are precise contributions she has made that make her writings an indispensable guide to understanding modern life, both the problems and many of the answers."
The Problem though, is that even after being deprived of one's created values they Still never learned to play nice . . .
That's where I noticed the "Perpetually Parasitical Humanoidal behavioral tantrums of the Global Delete and the Great Unwashed.
overt act of stealing all privacy and forcing virtually everyone to surrender their production at gunpoint.
Government access to recording devices should be taboo, but they will never stop unless force of arms is used.
Galt and the other strikers weren’t trying to actively change “the system” from within. They simply let it fail on its own. When they needed to they’d jack back into the system. It’s more like the Matrix Movie. I currently exist outside the system. I use the system for things I need to obtain that I cannot any other way. However, I am participating in parallel systems. Farmer’s markets (even the leftist ones) like to barter. You’d be surprised how many talented medical professionals are out there practicing free agency now because they refused the jab. It’s almost like a wild frontier inside an established society.
The government is prepared for and expects a full on frontal assault. I propose a death of a thousand cuts. We simply need to stop propping up this corrupt empire through our efforts.
When they inevitably send the stooges with guns to coerce through violence. Treat them as you would any home invader. We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. I don’t need to beg permission of the crown to go about my life peacefully. And I damn sure won’t surrender those rights peacefully either. I count 1-1 a net win in the defense of liberty.
the debt slavery and 'security' slavery of the majority (soon to be adding hunger slavery, access to
earnings slavery, and access to medical care slavery). If they are finally deprogrammed by tyranny
it may be too late for the rest of us who want to be able to excel and produce at our best.
"Selfishness" has such a bad reputation in today's society, that it is hard to get past that. AR chose the word to be controversial, and she certainly achieved that. I sometimes wish she had chosen differently - maybe "rational self interest". That's the phrase I tend to use when discussing objectivist topics with the "uninitiated".